Because Karen Dejo is apparently a huge search term right now, I'm going to type her name over and over in attempt to bump my traffic. *ahem*
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COIFED BLONDE NEWS ANCHOR (CBNA): Hurricane Rita, now a Category 5 storm, is poised to bear down on Texas, in what will surely be the most devastating storm ever to hit anywhere. An estimated 10,000 to 1.5 million people are going to die, or at least be disfiguringly wounded by the storm winds expected to exceed 750 miles per hour. Our own Curt Stryker is on the scene in Galveston, Texas. Curt, what's the situation there?
CURT STRYKER: Well, as you can see behind me, butt-puckering terror pretty much describes the feeling of the remaining residents here, even though Rita has weakened somewhat and is expected to be downgraded to a Category 3 storm by the time it hits landfall on Friday or Saturday. But, people shouldn't expect that to happen! It's a Category 5 right now, and in my opinion it should be a Category 10, or maybe a Category *, or something super-scary sounding.
CBNA: Are you planning on staying there in Galveston, Curt?
CURT STRYKER: Absolutely. In fact, I'm going to lash myself to this lamp post, and possibly insert the pole of this parking meter into my anus to stabilize myself in the face of the impending hurricane winds.
CBNA: Stay safe, Curt. We turn now to our political hurricane analyst, Tony Jetman, standing by in Houston. Tony, how will Hurricane Rita affect the polling numbers of President Bush?
TONY JETMAN: They can only go down, from what I can tell. Because the President is responsible for most global weather events, and my crappy bowling score last night, I can see no way for the President to survive this hurricane with his current approval ratings intact. Experts I've spoken with say the President can expect post-storm approval ratings of nine percent or less.
CBNA: And how will Hurricane Rita affect the John Roberts Supreme Court nomination?
TONY JETMAN: It's difficult to say, but critics point out that there's no clear information being made available by the White House about what Roberts' stance is on hurricanes. Does he like them? Does he not like them? We really don't know. Does America really want a hurricane enthusiast like John Roberts as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Time will tell.
CBNA: Thanks for that insightful report, Tony. Finally tonight, we turn to our own hurricane economist, Zap Laser. Zap, gas prices are expected to spike in the wake of Rita. What can Americans expect at the pump in the coming weeks.
ZAP LASER: Pure pandemonium. Streets will run red with blood as people slit each other's throats in their bid to get that last precious drop of gas from the pump into their Cadillac Escalades. Or not. We really don't know. I'm not even really sure what gas is, or where it comes from, or what it even does. Truth be told, I don't quite know how "gas" is spelled.
CBNA: Thank you, Zap. We'll continue to keep you updated on the progress of Hurricane Rita as the storm develops. Please stay tuned as the "Storm of the Apocalypse" unleashes its civilization-ending fury on the doomed United States of America.
FOLLOW-UP: The media may have exaggerated things based on non-confirmed reports? Impossible.
For those of you who don't already know, I spent my senior year of high school living and getting edumacated in Tokyo, Japan, which at that time consisted of, if you were to count suburbs, 24 million people or so. If you consider that I grew up in a community consisting of a population of just over 1,000, you can kind of, sort of, appreciate the sheer culture shock I experienced early on.
Today's culture shock anecdote is brought to you courtesy of this post by new ex-pat, Joshua.
As many of you are probably aware, Japan is, in fact, a country other than the United States, with its own history and culture and everything, if you can imagine such a thing. Well, one of its cultural oddities is that, for whatever reason during the evolution of the automobile, the Japanese decided to adopt the European model of driving on the left side of the road rather than the absolutely correct model of driving on the right side, as practiced by the rest of the world, the rest of the world being the United States.
Upon arriving in Japan, via the method of a 20 hour airplane commute, my family and I were ushered into a van by one of the high school administrators, Haku-san. I noticed quite quickly that the steering wheel was on the right side of the vehicle, which struck me as particularly amazing.
Haku-san, it became immediately obvious, wasn't so much interested in getting us safely to our destination as he was in getting us there as quickly as possible. If he could have used a blow torch to carve a hole below the accelerator, so as to circumvent the maddening limitations of simply "flooring it," I'm fairly certain he would have tried. And, judging by the traffic outside buzzing past us as if we were standing still, many motorists apparently opted to do just that.
Interesting factual tidbit that I'm not sure still applies in Japan, but when I was there, new vehicles coming off the lot were equipped with a device that beeped annoyingly whenever the vehicle exceeded a certain speed. Many, if not most, Japanese car owners--in violation of the law, I believe--simply hacked their way into the automotive innards and deactivated the annoying beeper.
Others, like Haku-san in his high school-owned high-speed jet van, just opted to ignore the perpetual beeping as he exceeded the law-abiding speed by about a factor of 10 or more. The endless beeping caused much in the way of consternation within the ranks of the jet-lagged van inhabitants. Eventually, however, the jet lag started to outweigh my fear of death in a high speed car accident, and I started to drift asleep, where I dreamt of a fantastic world full of alien creatures who communicated with one another by beeping continually.
As is the case with jet lag sleep, and vehicle sleep in general, it wasn't a very deep slumber, but it was disorienting enough to kind of make me forget where I was at, where I was going, what my name was, that sort of thing.
Therefore, when I woke up on the left side of the vehicle, directly behind my father's seat, I was quite unaware of what was going on, so I naturally fell back on that with which I was most familiar: namely, that the steering wheel was supposed to be on the left side.
Which meant, in my mind, that my father was. . . ASLEEP BEHIND THE fuckING WHEEL!
"DAAAAAAAAD!" I screamed, kicking the back of his seat with enough force to make a mule proud, and prompting pretty much everyone in the van to briefly panic.
"What?! What?! What?!" responded Dad, who I swear fumbled for an invisible steering wheel in front of him.
"Um, uh, no-no-nothing," I said. "I just thought you, uh, well, you know. . . the driver's side and. . ."
"You almost gave me a heart attack!"
And the moral of this story is: Japanese should start driving on the right side of the road to prevent American heart attacks.
Avast thar, Mateys. Batten the hatches! Hoist up the Jolly Roger! Score me some booty that can blow me down!
If you're not a Minnesota Vikings "fan," this post won't mean dick, unless your name is Dick. Anyway, I scored an interview with Daunte Culpepper following the most pathetic football game in modern history. And, keep in mind here that we're talking about the Vikings, which seem to have the market cornered when it comes to pathetic football games.
ME: So, ummmm, the Bengals, huh?
DAUNTE: Hey, those are big cats!
ME: So, ummmm, FIVE interceptions?
DAUNTE: Arthritis.
ME: So, ummmm, the whole Randy Moss trade. . .
DAUNTE: Hey, talk to Tice on that one.
ME: So, ummmm, what about this improved defense?
DAUNTE: Well, 38 points isn't 40, is it? Baby steps, man, baby steps.
ME: So, ummmm, the Bengals, huh?
DAUNTE: Didn't we already cover this? Big cats! Helloooooo!
ME: So, ummmm, an 0-2 start, huh?
DAUNTE: Yeah? So? Same with the Packers!
ME: Did you really just equate the Vikings with those cornholing Packers?
DAUNTE: Maybe.
ME: Is it perhaps time to give Brad Johnson another chance at starting?
DAUNTE: I'm bigger than he is.
ME: True, but he's also the only quarterback in history to actually complete a pass to himself for a touchdown. I was at that game, so I know stuff.
DAUNTE: You and fuckin' Nick Coleman.
ME: I think he even has a Super Bowl ring from his stint with the Buccaneers.
DAUNTE: Who? Nick Coleman?
ME: No, dipshit. Brad Johnson.
DAUNTE: Oh, right.
ME: So, do the Vikings actually intend to win a game this year?
DAUNTE: Well, you can never really plan on that, but it'd be nice.
ME: You'd think if you were to win any game, any game at all, it would be against the Bengals.
DAUNTE: Okay, listen, if you can't understand the concept of big cats, I don't think we can continue this interview.
*Daunte storms out of my brain*
